Timeless music and nameless music

Monday, grey overcast but not raining. The forecast for today (indeed, for the whole week) presents the venerable-sun icon. That's the one where the golden globe is surrounded by whisps of grey clouds on either side, like tufty grey hair along a bald dome. The grey should burn off, more or less, and it should be a pleasant mid-seventies (low twenties, celsius).

The iPod lead off with a Cockburn tune from 1975 (January In The Halifax Airport Lounge) which could just as easily have been written yesterday, if you substitute Afghanistan for Cyprus:

Distant times in distant lands
Worthless money changing hands
"Changing them to what?" -- I wonder
As in the dust the jet plane thunders
Carries every feeling into gloom
I miss you like I miss the flowers in bloom

There's a crisis in the outer world
In the sky the smoke trails curl
Some Winnipeg boys are Cyprus-bound
I hope they live to touch home ground
I hope we live to touch, if just once more
I need you like the river needs the shore

In life so delicate and strange
Understanding seldom comes in range
We stumble through familiar scenes
Never thinking what it means,
In this cluttered landscape to be loved
I need you like I need the stars above

The playlist closed with a pleasant, if banal, bit of classical music. From one of those nameless compilation discs that get given away. No idea where I came by it, or when it found it's way into my music collection. No mention of the name of the composer of the piece, or of the full piece it comes from (if it does), or even the orchestra performing. Just "various artists" and Clarinet Concert. I recognize the tune, however, so I know it is Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major K. 622, which is a beautiful piece of music in the right hands.

The full playlist:
- Bruce Cockburn: January In The Halifax Airport Lounge
- João Gilberto: Meditacao
- Various Artists: Clarinet Concert


- Posted via Hermes.